Wednesday, November 30, 2016

A group wanting to close down Australia's offshore detention centres brought about a stop to proceedings in Parliament today. Some of them even tried to glue their hands to the railings.

The protest garnered a lot of media attention but the timing was off. There have been a number of attacks by asylum seekers in the news lately. We have had:

27 injured when a Muslim refugee from Myanmar set fire to a bank in the Melbourne suburb of Springvale

a Somali refugee mow down people with his car at Ohio State University before attacking them with a machete (he was brought to America by Catholic Charities - the Catholic Church seems to be heavily involved in pushing for Muslim immigration to the West)

an African refugee here in Melbourne sentenced to four years in jail for breaking into a home and assaulting a woman while she lay asleep next to her baby in bed

The protesters, who want to allow anyone to fly to Indonesia and then get on a boat to arrive in Australia, do not seem to care about the effects of open borders on existing populations. They cannot think of better alternatives to the refugee issue, such as resettling those claiming asylum somewhere closer to their country of origin - closer in distance, living standards and culture.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Well, our last get together was terrific with three new attendees and some wide-ranging discussion. The next meeting is coming up soon in early December. If you'd like to attend please contact either myself (swerting@bigpond.com) or Mark Moncrieff via his website.

I posted recently about Lena Dunham after she made a video with her father celebrating the impending extinction of white men.

Lena had promised to move to Canada if Donald Trump won the election but, unsurprisingly, has announced that she will not be fulfilling her vow. In her explanation of why she is going to stay in America she wrote:

I've realized I can survive, as a Jewish pro-choice sexual assault survivor with a queer family member and a belief that we are all exactly and beautifully equal.

On reading this, I thought that maybe she doesn't think white men are "exactly and beautifully equal" as she has extinction in mind for us. But leaving this aside the formulation that "we are all exactly and beautifully equal" struck me as odd.

It doesn't seem to be true. Some people are more low-minded, more criminally-minded and more selfish than others. Some people have evil in their hearts and minds. Some people dwell in what is squalid in life and never rise above it. I do not see how such people are "exactly and beautifully equal" to others.

We can be aware, even in our own lives, of the rise and fall in the quality of our thoughts, actions and feelings. One manifestation of who we are is not equal to another.

So why would Lena Dunham claim that people are exactly equal? You might think she means this in the sense that we are all equal in the sight of God (so that even those most alienated from the good, nonetheless retain an imprint of what is perfect and divine in their nature - even if this is difficult to discern on the surface).

But I doubt that this is it. I suspect the context for her is the liberal belief that there is nothing objectively right or wrong and therefore no way of measuring what is higher or lower in what people aspire to be or do. What liberals do instead is to assert that there is an equal dignity in people defining their own good, their own identity, their own lifestyle and so on. It makes sense, in this liberal context, to assert that people are "exactly equal," just as it is senseless to do so from a more traditional perspective.

The liberal approach to equality comes with problems. It doesn't change the fact that people seek distinction in life. But instead of seeking distinction by disciplining themselves to objective standards of character, they are left to do so in other ways. For instance, if there is no distinction to be had in the traditional moral realm, then material status takes on an even greater importance (educational and career status for the upper classes; phones, designer shoes etc. for those lower down the ranks).

In the moral sphere liberals seek distinction through virtue signalling, i.e. by knowing what political position to take to best represent the latest trends in liberal thought. This alone gives some people a sense of superiority over others.

There's another way for liberals to signal moral distinction/superiority. Liberals don't believe in an objective right or wrong. However, they do believe in a system in which we each define our own good, whilst respecting others' freedom to do the same. This means that it is virtuous in a liberal system to not interfere with how others define their own good. So it is considered especially moral to be non-discriminatory, inclusive, open and tolerant. Therefore, the most virtuous/superior liberal will be the one who is most inclusive to whoever is deemed to be the most "other".

In practice Muslims are usually tagged as the most "other" and so there are many liberals who believe that they are demonstrating moral distinction by being open to the Islamising of the West (the liberal churches seem to be especially prone to this - to promoting Muslim immigration as a great moral cause, even though this will eventually undermine the place of Christianity in the West).

Finally, liberals have brought in inequality via "intersectionality," in which membership of a group thought to be oppressed gives a person greater moral authority and status than those thought to be more privileged. This moral pecking order is taken very seriously by some liberal activists; in an odd way, group victimhood gives people a special place vis-à-vis others, to the point that it is thought that the others ought not to speak but to listen, or to take up less space, or to move aside.

So that is Lena Dunham's "beautiful equality." It is an equality in which people seek to be recognised as superior via such things as career status; politically correct beliefs; upholding the "other" regardless of the practical consequences of doing so; and claiming membership of oppressed groups.

It's a mess. It does not create equality and the drive toward distinction is mostly frittered away on things that do not really confer distinction. And, as for white men, we apparently do not even qualify to be part of Lena's system.

Friday, November 25, 2016

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has sparked controversy by saying that Prime Minister Fraser made a mistake in the 1970s by overriding departmental advice and allowing Lebanese Muslim refugees to come to Australia. Officials in the Immigration Department warned Mr Fraser that the largely uneducated, rural Muslim refugees would struggle to fit into Australia and might bring some of the violence common in their homeland to Australia.

As it happens, two thirds of those connected to terrorism in Australia are Lebanese Muslims; there has been a wave of crime gang related shootings amongst Lebanese Muslim communities in Sydney and Melbourne; 20% of Lebanese migrants still cannot speak English; many of those recruited to fight for ISIS have come from this community; and Lebanese Muslims are four times more likely to be on the disability pension than the general population.

So, although there have been some success stories as well, the department officials had a point.

What I'd like to focus on, though, is the bigger picture of what happens when you bring diverse groups of refugees to Western countries (i.e. refugees from very different backgrounds to the host country). For instance, one leader of the Muslim Lebanese community, Mostafa Rochwani, replied angrily to Dutton that it was Australians who pushed the Lebanese refugees into violence and crime:

These communities have faced cultural, political, economic and physical violence from a society that was hostile to any kind of encroachment on their grip on what it means to be Australian...Whether it is expressed in gang violence or in foreign fighters, these people are inherently just seeking what society was unwilling to provide them: their humanity, their worth being recognised.

Is the problem not obvious? Rochwani is saying that the price for integrating Lebanese Muslims is for the existing population to give up on their own sense of what it means to be an Australian. We have to give up our own identity, so that the refugees can then feel more included.

And, in a sense, he is right. It is human nature for people to want to feel a sense of identity and belonging in the society they live in. If you bring in people who are radically different ethnically, then you have an issue. Either the newcomers have to miss out in terms of identifying with the larger community, or else the existing population does. Someone has to lose out.

This is less of a problem for liberal whites, as they are committed ideologically to the idea of identifying only with themselves as individuals - although in practice they do seek out communities of white liberals to live amongst. But for most Westerners having to give up on their own identity, so that Lebanese Muslims are not radicalised, is not a great situation to be in.

That's why the whole project of flying refugees around the world to live in the suburbs of Western cities is a misguided one. It is part of a liberal denial of human nature.

One more example. Dutton was attacked in Parliament by Australia's first female Muslim MP, Anne Aly. Aly was self-conscious when she was a girl of not looking the same as others:

Australia's first Muslim woman elected to Parliament, the counter-terrorism expert said she had become aware of her own status as a minority at the age of six or seven.

Wondering why she didn't have a Barbie doll that looked like her, she was told by her mother thinking too much would make her go crazy

Anne Aly has been given every advantage in the Western world (a high flying career as an academic, employment as a government expert, a columnist for several leading newspapers, and now an MP) but she still does not identify with the Western tradition because she was self-conscious of looking different. And so she says things like "Let's disrupt, let's destroy the joint."

Again, the only way to make her feel better is for the traditional white Western populations to no longer exist in such numbers. Only then will those like Anne Aly no longer feel like a minority outsider. It is once again a terrible situation that Westerners have been put in by liberal immigration policies - go under, so that Muslim girls don't feel like they belong to a minority which looks different.

﻿

Anne Aly responding to Peter Dutton

One final point. In some ways, the politics of the left is forming around this dynamic. It was noticeable during the American elections that younger minority activists looked to white politicians like Hillary Clinton as their "allies" against the white majority. It puts the white leftists in an unusual situation. They are temporarily useful to those who see themselves as the new America, but they won't serve the same function in the longer term - they won't be needed anymore. If the white liberal left wins, and the demographic trends continue, then a tipping point will be reached at which the minority activists will feel confident that they can get the job done by themselves, without the need for the leadership of white liberals. Where then will the future Clintons of the world fit in on the left? In other words, if the point of leftist politics is to represent non-white activists against the white majority, then what will happen ultimately to the white left? They will not be natural leaders of this movement, not in the longer term. They are temporary stand-ins.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

In 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States decided in favour of homosexual marriage (Obergefell vs Hodges). The decision was a close one (5-4). Both the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions were argued for in terms of first principles, which gives an unusually clear insight into what is thought to matter by those who matter.
Let's begin with the majority opinion. The introduction to the ruling states:

The fundamental liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices defining personal identity and beliefs...

...The first premise of this Court's relevant precedents it that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy.

The more detailed part of the ruling begins as follows:

The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.

The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex.

I'm going to pause here, because this is the state ideology in a nutshell. What matters, we are being told, is a liberty to define our own identity. This liberty must extend equally to all persons. That is how we get to be autonomous and to have dignity as a person.

Justice Roberts in his dissenting opinion makes an obvious objection to this view. He writes:

The majority opens its opinion by announcing petitioners' right to "define and express their identity." The majority later explains that "the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy."...One immediate question invited by the majority's position is whether States may retain the definition of marriage as a union of two people...It is striking how much of the majority's reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage. If "there is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices," why would there be any less dignity in the bond between three people who, in exercising their autonomy, seek to make the profound choice to marry?

Isn't this right? If what matters is "a right to personal choice regarding marriage" that is "inherent in the concept of individual autonomy," then isn't my dignity being infringed upon if I cannot choose to marry two women?

And why should marriage be a lifelong union if what matters is a right to choice regarding marriage? If I want to choose to leave one woman and marry another, then aren't I being a good liberal in doing so? And why should marriage be an exclusive union? If my autonomy is at stake, then why shouldn't I define my identity in terms of having both a wife and a lover on the side? For that matter, why should the biological connection between myself and my children matter? Aren't we all autonomous individuals, defining our own identity? So why should paternity matter that much? Or maternity for that matter? And why should I be held to owe any duty of care to my wife or to my children? If I were to follow the logic of the Supreme Court, then I have no duty of care, but only a free choice to care, if that is what fits with how I choose to define my personal identity and beliefs.

And if the aim of my life is to maximise my autonomy, in which I have the greatest possible freedom to choose to act as I wish, then why would I even contemplate marriage in the first place? Why wouldn't I choose to live alone, free to pursue a single man/woman lifestyle, not having to compromise myself for another person?

Marriage only makes sense if the guiding principle of life is not, in fact, the idea that our dignity comes from a personal autonomy to define ourselves as we wish. Nobody limits themselves to one other person for the sake of autonomy. And you would be crazy to commit to parenthood in the belief that you would thereby maximise your personal autonomy.

When men believe that being a paterfamilias really matters, that it has meaning, then marriage flourishes. Men commit to this role, not out of a belief in autonomy, but because they believe that in doing so they are upholding some important part of their own manhood, one necessary to the wellbeing of their wife and children, and to the family lineage and national tradition that they belong to and identity with.

Family cannot be unsexed. It is a procreative union of a man and a woman that cannot endure unless men are absolutely persuaded of their own necessary role as husbands and fathers within it (and are confident in the support of the state in this role).

Homosexual marriage has the effect of unsexing the family. It forces us to believe that whether a family has a man and a woman, or two men, or two women is all the same. Therefore, a man being a man is of little consequence when it comes to family life. It means that a man is not expressing anything significant about himself as a man when it comes to what he does in or for a family.

Do we men really believe this to be true? Is the homosexual view really the truth about marriage and family? Is being a man something that is only incidental to our lives? Or is it perhaps something that is not expressed within a family, but only outside of it, in some other sphere of life? Could that really be the truth of things?

I just don't believe that this will ring true to most men. Most men have a profound experience of the way that men and women are called together to be in a procreative union with each other. It is part of the warp and woof of reality itself. And most men too have an instinct toward expressing some part of their manhood within a family, as a husband and father, and will, in most circumstances, be motivated to fulfil this instinct, even if this constrains their autonomy.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Liberal Christians are increasingly becoming the worst, most extreme liberals. A case in point: the South African, Martin Young. He has written a newspaper column with the heading "Whiteness is like herpes". It opens like this:

You know now that you have it but prefer not to talk about it. Every now and then it surfaces like a rash, provoking discomfort, not in you, but in others. You have lived with it for so long that for most of your life you didn’t even notice it. In fact, you were surprised when someone, unable themselves by virtue of colour to have it, discovered that you did, and pointed it out. The diagnosis hurt. It was uncomfortable knowing that others saw in you something that was damaging to them, but not directly to you.

And now there are calls to have those with whiteness pay for the damage it has done to others. This makes you uncomfortable, knowing that, like herpes, you cannot eradicate whiteness from your own being. It is just there.

This is as spiritually sick as a person gets. A healthy positive identity is replaced with a self-hating, self-abnegating one. Martin Young really needs to choose a more fitting kind of hairshirt for himself.

While we're on the topic of South Africa, it's worth mentioning that Julius Malema, leader of a party with 25 seats, has called on his followers to occupy white-owned land:

South African opposition firebrand Julius Malema is telling his followers to seize any piece of white-owned land they want, defying a court trying him on charges of inciting violent property grabs.

Malema addressed cheering members of his ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party near the courtroom in Bloemfontein, after a judge adjourned the politically charged hearing.

'When we leave here, you will see any beautiful piece of land, you like it, occupy it...

They [the McKinnons] had resisted the pressure of the land invaders for many years, perhaps protected by Zimbabweans who saw them as “good” farmers because they employed 250 permanent and seasonal workers, grew much-needed crops and donated food to a local school and orphanage.

But in one incident in 2012, Mark McKinnon was kidnapped and tortured for 24 hours by dozens of young men, believed to be the sons of high-ranking officials who wanted his farm.

“I was badly beaten, and they broke all my teeth,” he said. “It was horrific. But farming is the only thing I know, so I stood up and fought for it.”

This year, the pressure grew worse. Local magistrates issued several eviction orders. He appealed to higher courts, obtaining an injunction against the orders. In July, invaders arrived and began drinking beer outside the house. His father picked up a gun and ordered them to leave. Police arrested him and his wife and jailed them for four days.

Meanwhile, a state-owned newspaper accused them of hiding an “arms cache” – ignoring the fact that their guns were licensed and Mr. McKinnon was a member of Zimbabwe’s national clay-pigeon shooting team, often competing in international championships.

In late August, men broke into the house and tossed their furniture outside. Their belongings, including photos and papers, were strewn across the bush.

“I just said, ‘No, it’s enough now,’” Mr. McKinnon said. “I didn’t want my children hurt like I was hurt. They would have locked us up on any trumped-up charges.”

Saturday, November 19, 2016

There's a fascinating article at the Los Angeles Times about a cultural shift amongst Iran's educated women. It seems that Western norms are taking hold amongst this group, leading to a declining marriage and birth rate in that country, as well as a higher divorce rate.

The article claims that the Iranian women are "liberated" but are held back by the men being too "traditional". But when you read through the interviews with these educated Iranian women a certain picture emerges. These women want things on their own terms. If the husband works too long hours, then they want a freedom to divorce him. But the husband has to accept it if she works long hours. They want a freedom to sleep around as they wish when young, but dislike it when they hit their 30s and want to marry and only meet men who want to sleep with them. An Iranian man in the comments also points out that they claim to want to be independent, but refuse to use their own earnings to contribute to household finances - they are suddenly traditional when it comes to men being the breadwinners.

I think it's evidence of just how easily a society can fall into a culture that is hostile to stable family formation.

A woman has suffered spinal injuries and another received minor injuries after an attack involving up to 10 men of Sudanese appearance on a Melbourne beach.

The attack took place at Chelsea beach on Thursday night.

This isn't the kind of thing that Melbournians are used to - a gang of young men bashing women on a beach. This too is a different kind of crime:

A gang of 15 teenagers brazenly shoplifted from a Melbourne Officeworks store and left 'cheering and dancing' while holding the stolen items above their heads.

Witness Chris, who chose to keep his surname anonymous, said he went to the South Yarra store in the city's southeast to buy a computer at 4.30pm on Saturday when he noticed the youths, aged 13 to 17, taking headphones and speakers from the shelves.

He said the teenagers, believed to be members of the notorious Apex gang, were dancing down the aisles and walked out cheering a minute later, setting off the store alarms.

'They certainly weren't walking around with their heads down - they were happily ransacking the shelves,' he told 3AW on Monday.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

I don't think this will surprise anyone but a study by "Doctors of the World" has found that only 13% of the refugees who have entered Europe are fleeing from war. The majority had arrived for economic reasons.

Nor will it come as a surprise that an Arabic translator, who is Christian but who was assumed to be Muslim by those in the refugee centres, found that amongst themselves those working and living in the refugee centres were hostile to the host society. The translator reported that,

“Some women told me ‘We will multiply our numbers. We must have more children than the Christians because it’s the only way we can destroy them here”, she recalls.

It is more evidence that the refugee system needs to be reformed. These problems would not arise if refugees were resettled in countries with similar economic conditions and cultural/religious backgrounds. If there were no economic benefit to claiming asylum, then there would be no incentive for economic migrants to claim to be refugees. And if asylum seekers were resettled in countries with the most similar ethnicity, then there would no longer be a problem of assimilation (e.g. the issue of Muslims wanting to displace Christians would not arise).

Monday, November 14, 2016

Hat tip for this story to The Politically Incorrect Australian. Jessica Valenti is a prominent American feminist. She has written a memoir called Sex Object which has been memorably reviewed by Robert Stacy McCain. It's worth reading the whole review (it is blunt in its language).

Let me give the briefest of summaries of Valenti's life to date. She followed the modern girl path of spending her teens and twenties as a party girl seeking sex with the most alpha men she could get (she preferred tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired men) and taking drugs. She was snorting coke during the period she founded the feminist website Feministing. When she hit her 30s she did the done thing and got married. She has, apparently, been somewhat ruined for marriage though:

Andrew and I have been going to couple’s therapy, both for my anxiety and because Andrew is so mad at the space the anxiety takes up in our relationship. Our default mood is low-level annoyance toward each other with a propensity to turn into full-blown rage at the smallest thing.

I feel like I might hate him and I suspect he feels the same.

It reminds me again that we do not choose the best people to run our culture. Our young women are supposed to look up to and emulate someone with mental health issues and a history of drug and alcohol abuse.

If it were me, I would not be putting myself forward as a role model, at least not until I had got myself sorted out.

The other reminder is that we now have to deal with a culture in which there exist women who want to be players but who also want to keep the option of becoming wives and mothers. It's an odd game that modern feminists are playing: they want a player culture of their own, whilst stridently opposing one for men. Robert Stacy McCain touches on this in his review - he identifies the double standard by which it is "progressive" for women to act like players but "sexist" for men to do the same. To put this another way, the ideal for a feminist is to allow free rein to her own sexuality whilst keeping a lid on the expression of male sexuality (the traditionalist preference is for both to be directed toward higher ends).

Saturday, November 12, 2016

A number of Clinton supporters have directed their anger at white women for supporting Trump. One of these Clintonistas is an American writer and feminist by the name of Lindy West. I found her thoughts on the issue particularly interesting, as she spelled out the underlying, psychological reasons for her passionate support for Hillary. In claiming that white women had "pawned their humanity" in voting for Trump she wrote:

I got up on Election Day and burst into tears — not a genteel twin trickle but a great heaving burst, zero to firehose. Tears spattered the inside of my glasses, dripped from my lips, and left mascara-tinged rosettes blooming black in my cereal milk.

“Honey,” my husband crooned to me. “Honey, it’s going to be O.K. The numbers are still good. It’s O.K.”

But it wasn’t the numbers. I wasn’t sobbing because I was afraid Hillary Clinton was going to lose. That would come later. I was sobbing Tuesday morning because, as I poured my coffee, I’d caught a glimpse of a cable news interview with Mrs. Clinton just after she voted for herself in Chappaqua, N.Y. She seemed breathless, exhilarated, a little overwhelmed. Over her shoulder, Bill Clinton stared at his wife and beamed.

My husband stares at me like that sometimes. It’s not just love — we expect husbands to love their wives — but something less traditional, more conditional and gendered. It’s professional respect. It’s pride.

We’re accustomed to that pride flowing the other direction, from wife to husband, because men in our culture get to be more than just bodies, do more than just nurture. Men get to act and excel and climb and aspire and thrive and win and rule and be the audacious, hungry fulcrum of public life. It is normal for men to have ambition. It is normal for women to stand aside.

...I cried because I want my daughters to feel that blazing pride, that affirmation of their boundless capacity — not from their husbands, but from their world, from the atmosphere, from inviolable wells of certainty inside themselves. I cried because it’s not fair, and I’m so tired, and every woman I know is so tired. I cried because I don’t even know what it feels like to be taken seriously — not fully, not in that whole, unequivocal, confident way that’s native to handshakes between men. I cried because it does things to you to always come second.

Whatever your personal opinion of the Clintons, as politicians or as human beings, that dynamic is real. We, as a culture, do not take women seriously on a profound level. We do not believe women. We do not trust women. We do not like women.

I understand that many men cannot see it, and plenty more do not care. I know that many men will read this and laugh, or become defensive, or call me hysterical, or worse, and that’s fine. I am used to it. It doesn’t make me wrong.

But maybe this election was the beginning of something new, I thought. Not the death of sexism, but the birth of a world in which women’s inferiority isn’t a given.

After I had read this it occurred to me that what she was really seeking in having Hillary elected was psychological validation. She has a hunger for validation. She wants her daughters to feel "that affirmation of their boundless capacity...from their world, from the atmosphere, from inviolable wells of certainty inside themselves". She is crying out "World please validate me and save me from feelings of inferiority". She believes that having a female president might deliver this.

Her quest for validation has led her to reject the feminine in favour of the masculine. She sees men shaking hands firmly, having self-confidence and energy and she is envious. She thinks that men are being given something by society, that they have been placed on a track by society that gives them this sense of inner validation. She wants it for herself. And so she wants to cast off the feminine and adopt the masculine.

In one sense, she's right. Men probably do have, on average, a more securely anchored sense of themselves and so do not seek external validation as much as women do. But I think Lindy West is wrong to assume that this is because society has empowered men to have ambition and denied this to women.

After all, we have had many female world leaders now; we have had women rising through the professions; we have had generations of girls raised to be ambitious at work. Lindy West herself has a relatively powerful and prestigious career as a journalist. If Lindy West were right, then women should now be amassing a treasure trove of validation, but instead Lindy West finds herself crying into her morning cereal.

And what of men? If Lindy West's theory were right, then ambitious, powerful men should feel validated, other men not. But it often doesn't work out this way. There are plenty of men working very humble jobs, who nonetheless have the self-confident, knockabout qualities that Lindy West seems so envious of.

So the question is this. How does an individual come to have a confident and secure sense of themselves as having worth as an individual?

There's no single thing, is there? If a son receives a good dose of mother love as a child, this helps. The same if a daughter grows up lovingly protected by her father. Genetics contributes something.

From here there is a gap between traditionalists and liberal moderns. Traditionalists can find worth for the individual in things that transcend individual life. For instance, if the masculine virtues have an inherent worth, and I as a man can embody some of these virtues, that then gives worth to who I am as an individual. Similarly, if there is a beauty in nature that has inherent value and I can perceive this and feel connected to it, then that too will add to my sense of worth as an individual.

For secular liberals, things are more difficult, as there is only the individual and his choices - there is no connection to things that have objective, transcendent value. So how do I prove my worth if I am a liberal? It has to be through things that mark out a purely personal, individual achievement, such as social popularity, sexual success, sporting achievements and, most of all, careers.

I can't be sure, but I suspect there is a major split between the kind of women who support Trump and those who support Clinton. The Clinton women are more likely to think that individual worth comes the liberal way (sexual conquests, social status, career advancement) and so are sensitive to the fear that they are being held back in achieving this because they are women. Lindy West is a case in point in how this is failing women. Despite women being given the green light to do whatever they want to, she still feels invalidated in her life. She hasn't gained a sense of worth from these pursuits alone and in seeking worth through these things she has turned on her own feminine identity.

The Trump women, I suspect, still look to more traditional sources of worth for themselves as individuals. Perhaps, they see a transcendent value in family and their own role in family life as wives and mothers. Perhaps they see a transcendent value in the larger communal traditional they belong to (i.e. in their identity as Americans) and don't wish to see this dissolved within a tide of globalisation and open borders. Perhaps they see a transcendent value in womanhood itself, and are uncomfortable with its declining status in the modern world or with the attempt to dissolve sex distinctions between men and women.

One final point. Liberal women see no reason to be loyal to the men of their own community. If all you are doing is pursuing sexual conquests; amassing likes on social media; and pursuing a career then why do you need to stand in solidarity with the men of your community? There's no logical reason to do so, especially if you believe these men are your competition.

Once you see yourself, though, as part of a family, a community, a culture and a civilisation, then you do have a reason for loyalty. And it is a good thing for men and women to be connected to each other in this way. It is an ugly part of modern life that men and women have been so set apart.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Some on the left clearly aren't used to losing. Despite controlling the media, the universities, the schools and the churches - in fact, nearly all of the institution of society - they did not get to win the Oval Office.

Dozens of students at Cornell University gathered on a major campus thoroughfare for a “cry-in” to mourn the results of the 2016 presidential election Wednesday, with school staff providing tissues and hot chocolate.

At Tufts University, arts and crafts were on offer. And the University of Kansas reminded students via social media of the therapy dogs available for comfort every other Wednesday.

The Portland, Oregon PD has fired live bullets after declaring the city's anti-Donald-Trump protest a riot Thursday night afters cars were smashed, buildings and cars vandalized and fires started.

'Due to extensive criminal and dangerous behavior, protest is now considered a riot. Crowd has been advised,' Portland police tweeted at 8:30pm local time.

They then tweeted: 'After several orders to disperse, police have used less lethal munitions to effect arrests and move the crowd. (Officers) still taking projectiles.'

Earlier footage showed protesters fighting and vandalizing buildings.

This left likes to lecture the rest of us about tolerance but is once again not looking the part.

And then there are the predictable attacks on white people. In New Orleans protesters daubed the words "Die Whites Die" on a monument:

And then there are the celebrity reactions. If you jump to 8:40 of the video below you see a tearful Chelsea Handler trying to convince herself not to move to Spain. (Why Spain? I have no idea.) Again, the left has had its ways in nearly all things for decades now and still controls the institutions of society. And yet this one defeat has pushed Chelsea Handler to despair:

I'd like to see all this ramped up a notch. I'd like to see us continuing to make inroads amongst the intelligentsia; to carve out more independent media influence; and to build up our influence in the institutions of society. I don't want us to return to a situation where we are isolated, powerless individuals, with the left having to search around for someone to oppose. Hopefully the left will just have to get used to things not always going their way.

Wednesday, November 09, 2016

It's a bit late here in Melbourne so I'll leave some more considered thoughts about the Trump election win until later. However, I thought some of the exit poll data was interesting and will briefly comment below.

First, the left-wingers on my social media feeds are apoplectic about the following table:

What the left finds depressing about this data is that it was not just white men who voted Trump, but white women as well. The usual taunts and jeers directed at white men won't work here. To me, it is a tantalising glimpse of what life could be like, when men and women are not set apart the way they have been for so long.

Here's another interesting one. Educated whites voted for Trump. He won amongst college graduates. This could be an important shift amongst the educated away from liberal group think.

The group that is still majority liberal are college educated white women, but even here the gap is not that large (45% voted Trump).

The following table is also significant. Trump won the majority of younger white voters. It's interesting too that his strongest support was amongst those aged 45 to 64 rather than the oldest group.

This too is striking. Despite religious leaders often being liberal, the religious rank and file went majority Trump. Those with no religion are, for the time being, still mostly liberal (I think there's a chance this will change, as the next generation of secular intellectuals are starting to break with liberalism).

What was the most important issue for Trump supporters? Immigration. Those who do not support open borders and globalisation went for Trump.

Finally, it is noteworthy that Trump's supporters identify as conservative but want change. This might seem contradictory, but it makes sense. If you live in a society with a liberal establishment, then a conservative doesn't want to conserve the current direction of society, he wants to change it. Hence the following tables:

So Trump supporters believe that Trump should be more conservative than Obama. But they also believe that the country is on the wrong track:

They also believe that life for the next generation of Americans is likely to get worse:

Therefore, they voted for a candidate who they hope can bring change:

P.S. I've simplified this commentary by treating Clinton supporters as liberal and Trump supporters as conservative. In truth, voting Republican is not a reliable indicator that someone is not a liberal - some Republicans are what I would call right-liberals. However, the debate this time around was so unusually polarised along liberal/conservative fault lines that I've cut myself a little slack in my use of terminology.

Friday, November 04, 2016

Lena Dunham, American feminist and prominent Hillary Clinton supporter, has posted a video on her twitter site which openly celebrates the extinction of white men.

In the video, Lena Dunham asks her father "How are you feeling about the extinction of white men?" Her father answers "Well, straight white men are a big problem, that's for sure. I actually feel pretty good about it. Straight white guys have been screwing things up for long enough." Dunham titled the tweet "It's not the end of men, it's the evolution of men into better men" which suggests that she thinks men will improve if there are no white men.

Here's the video:

It's not the end of men, it's the evolution of men into better men. (beautiful animation by Sophie Koko Gate!) pic.twitter.com/Qtf0xyT5Ad

I listen to this and am reminded of how moderns have to find what Zippy Catholic terms an "oppressor-untermensch," i.e. a category of persons who can be blamed for the failure of modernity to usher in humanity's (supposed) final phase of equal freedom. Once moderns tag you as the oppressor-untermensch you are in trouble, as any means will be employed to get you out of the way.

It's all based on a series of assumptions. First, that the aim of existence, and the end point of human history, is an equal freedom to be autonomous, self-determining individuals. Second, that the reason this doesn't exist is because one group of people (the oppressor-untermensch) has decided to divert human progress by attempting to oppress and exploit others to their own benefit.
The point for us is not to argue within the framework of this kind of politics, but to decisively reject the framework outright.

P.S. Life is strange. I just did an internet search on Lena Dunham's father. Turns out he's an artist. I don't know how to put this, but his paintings are focused on female orifices. Words fail me. He is a gone-bad-in-the-spirit WASP American.

Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Australian SJWs are not happy people today. They are feeling a bit shaky. Why? Two intrepid Brisbane men have set up a men's working space!

Some background to all this. Recently in Australia some women's working spaces have been created. My understanding is that these spaces exist to help women with business start ups: they provide working space, advice, networking and so on. They have been warmly welcomed and have large memberships.

The two Brisbane men thought that a similar working space for men was also warranted. Calling themselves Nomadic Thinkers they have set up a place which aims to "address male related social issues," to "help men be men" and to "launch men in business and life".

Some of the thinking behind the men's working space is quite good. Here is a sample:

Men are physical and practical creatures. We require camaraderie and social time with other men (without female chaperones). We need to provide for ourselves, then our families and then our communities (in that order as we mature further), this give us purpose.

Despite having no experience in any other time period, I would say that we live in the most challenging time and culture to be a man.

Historically (and unarguably.. though some will try) men's primary role has been to protect and provide for their families and communities.

Due to the fact that we are an incredibly intelligent species, we have created a world where those tasks now look incredibly different. In fact, very few of us need to protect our families from any real threats...

Furthermore, not only have we lost our roles but it is becoming common place for men to be persecuted for expressing their masculinity.

...Alas, as is so common in human nature, feminism has gone past its desired point and is polarizing to the extreme other end. We have become a culture that praises androgyny, glorifies gender role removal and tolerates all beliefs and choices... except from traditional (conservative I guess) views...

With the media pushing images of passive men, the clumsy dad, the goofy and dim-witted boyfriend, the incompetent boss, men are being seduced into a placated and listless expression of themselves. Is this so bad? Yes, absolutely! This is the reason we have an unprecedented rate of marriage breakdowns...show me a woman who respects a guy that gets walked all over?

While MGTOW [Men Going Their Own Way] community advocate checking out on marriage and women the reality is that will lead to quality men not reproducing and not raising the next generation. Simply put think of it as a numbers game. If you have kids and you are raising them well. This have a multiplier effect. Your ideas and worldview can be bestowed upon them meaning your vote at elections increases, your wealth production increases and your general well-being can increase.

That being said the risk of finding a quality mate is high. With increasing divorce rates and laws such as no-fault divorce and Disney's absolute destruction of what Love and real relationships are with an obsession with infatuation. But they are out there and even in the West.

It's generally good stuff. I'd encourage any Brisbane readers to think about supporting the venture (the website is here). It's a good example of an innovative way of creating alternative spaces. The pity is that they are pioneers and so have to bear the brunt of SJW anguish alone - ideally these ventures would be springing up all over the place.

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Nicholas Matte lectures at the University of Toronto. In the video below he asserts that "It is not correct that there is such a thing as biological sex". He then announces his intention to break down a "cisnormative culture" which he defines as the idea that "there is such a thing as male and female, that they connect to being a girl or a boy or a man or a woman..."

Crazy, right? But don't write him off. His views fit in with the state ideology, so they'll find their way onto your local school curriculum regardless of how outlandish they seem.

Remember, the ultimate aim of liberalism is for individuals to be self-defining. We don't get to define our biological sex, so a liberal will therefore be committed to making the fact of being a man or a woman not matter. They can do this either by aiming for sex neutral outcomes or, more radically, by denying the existence of biological sex. Liberals will be tempted to take the view that being male or female is merely a social construct designed to privilege some people and oppress others. They will want us to overcome the "gender binary".

I've been thinking for some time that liberalism has pushed the modernist project to a degree that Marxism never attempted, i.e. that liberalism is now to the "left" of Marxism.

For instance, I am not aware that Marx or Lenin or Trotsky or Stalin ever pushed the idea that whether we are male or female has little to do with our biological sex but depends instead on what we as individuals identify as. I doubt that parents in the USSR ever had state officials threatening to confiscate their children if the parents did not consent to them undergoing sex change procedures (as now happens in the UK). I suspect that Stalin would have choked on his cornflakes at the idea of this.

And to help confirm my belief that Marxism is now less radically modernist than liberalism comes the news that a Marxist academic at NYU, Michael Rectenwald, has been stood down for objecting to the liberal campus culture with its "safe spaces" and its "trigger warnings" and its attacks on people for being "cisgendered white males". Rectenwald wrote:

"Identity politics on campus have made an infirmary of the whole, damn campus. Let’s face it: every room is like a hospital ward. What are we supposed to do? I can’t deal with it—it’s insane.” And later still: “the crazier and crazier that this left gets, this version of the left, the more the alt-right is going to be laughing their asses off

A cis, white, straight male like myself is guilty of something. I don’t know what. But I’m f... sure I’m guilty of it. And I am very f.... low on the ethical totem pole, you know.

For uttering these thought crimes Rectenwald found himself being condemned not by "The Workers' Collective Against the Running Lap Dogs of Imperialism" but by a similar sort of committee calling itself the "Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group".

This group claimed to fully support Professor Rectenwald's right to speak his mind but then declared him to be "guilty of illogic" and he was subsequently stood down.

We live in an ideological society. If you had been born in East Germany in 1950, then as a 25-year-old in 1975 an Eastern bloc style communism would have been all that you had ever experienced. It would have seemed normal to a degree. This is even truer of the Western liberal societies as liberalism has proceeded along more gradually and has chosen to mostly hide its ideological nature (instead making appeals to ideologically neutral sounding phrases like freedom or equality or social justice). But we are just the same as those East Germans. We live in an ideological society we have grown used to.

The answer is not to revert to a now less radical form of the same modernist project, such as Marxism, but to think outside of the whole project to something different. If we drop the modernist ideology altogether then what opens up to us? Can't we then begin to think again in terms of the virtues? Of deeper forms of communal identity? Of the spiritual aspect to our existence? Of the stability of family relationships? Can't we then begin to address the complex ordering of society that is needed to draw together the different aspects of the human experience (the natural, the social, the spiritual) - rather than trying to impose a cruder technological ordering based on the needs of the market or state bureaucracies?

Anyway, it seems as if liberals are going to crush the Marxists to their right. More room for us traditionalists to fill the void.